Back to Back and Hand to Hand
by Kaitlyn October Snape
Summary: Bones kept his secret for so long, but he was prepared to give up everything just to make sure Jim stayed alive. Reaper!Bones/Jim pre-slash


**Pairing** Jim/Reaper!Bones  
**Rating:** PG-13  
**Warnings:** swearing, pre-slash (does that count?)  
**A/N:** This was inspired by a comment made by miss_m_cricket over on LJ in response to a review for her story. This is my first time writing Reaper!Bones, mostly because I'm really slow and only saw Doom today... I know it's been out forever, but.. Oh, nevermind. I'm just slow with movies, and we'll leave it at that.

"The 'why's and 'how the fuck?!'s don't matter, Jim! I'm still Leonard McCoy, I'm still Bones, _your_ Bones, and this shouldn't change that," Bones begged, actually begged, eyes shining with tears he had nearly forgotten he could cry.

"Really, Reaper? Are you really _my_ Bones or am I just a distraction to pass the time?" Jim spat, eyes uncharacteristically cold even as his tone heated up with anger and betrayal, making John flinch. "You _lied_ to me. You _fucking_ lied to me. You couldn't have taken me aside at one point and said, 'Oh, hey, Jim. You know those lessons we had in history about the Olduvai base on Mars? Well, they're wrong. There wasn't a rift; scientists went too far and made a gene that could make people immortal, and I know since I was there.' You couldn't have even fucking _hinted_ at any of that?!"

"Jim, I couldn't tell you! Would you really have believed me?! What if word had gotten out? You know it does! My sister and I came up with that story so the goddamn scientists couldn't get a hold of me and synthesize that chromosome! If they did, we'd—" John was cut off by Jim's slightly choked sound. He looked up to see a kind of pain on Jim's face that he had never wanted to see. It turned the other man's eyes from a beautiful ice blue to a deep blue-grey that made him reel back in shock.

"So you didn't trust me with it? Wow, I..." Jim trailed off, apparently speechless as he leaned heavily against the wall nearest him.

While Jim's unfocused gaze was elsewhere, John took his chance and stepped forward, cradling Jim's face in his hands, needlessly careful of the already healed cuts that would not even scar. He had had to do it; there was no other choice in his mind. It had been a selfish decision on his part, but he could _not_ have just let Jim die. His sister had kept the remainder of the C-24 with her after she had dosed him with it. He had wanted to use it on her, to keep her with him, but she had told him no.

Sara had said he could stay with her until she died, but he was supposed to promise to save the rest of the liquid until he found someone without whom he could not live. John had made the promise after she had threatened to disappear altogether, and he stuck to it, no matter how much it pained him. He held onto the serum for 217 years after Sara had given it to him in the hospital room where she recovered after the events on Olduvai, and the thought had never crossed his mind to use it, though he kept it on him in a show of sentimentality for which his sister would, no doubt, have teased him.

John was never tempted to use it. Until the day James T. Kirk was fatally wounded after they were separated from the rest of the away team on what was supposed to have been a simple recon mission. It had, rather unsurprisingly considering their luck, turned out to be a trap. The CMO and the Captain were separated from the other group when a nearby failsafe had detonated, sending shrapnel everywhere, too fast for even Reaper's reflexes as Jim took most of the blast. Little shards of metal scraped the skin of his face, and a large one slashed open his stomach.

John had no time for hesitating. Jim was making small sounds of shocked pain as he gasped out, "Bones... Sorry to do this... Wish you... W-Wish I could have—" John covered Jim's mouth with his, making a sound like a soft sob as he stabbed Jim in the neck with a C-24 loaded hypo. Jim was out with his change long enough for them both to get beamed back to the _Enterprise_ and have John set him up in a private room to which only the CMO's clearance code could be used to enter.

~*~

After another hour, Jim woke up feeling absolutely no pain and looked around for Bones. He saw him curled in a chair across the room, not next to him as he usually was with some lecture about being heroic whenever Jim got hurt. Jim opened his mouth and tried to say something, but Bones' soft voice stopped him.

"I'm sorry, Jim. I had to. I couldn't let you die," he whispered. Jim looked at him in askance before his memories returned full force. The bomb, the pain, the _kiss_, and the familiar feel of a hypo being jabbed into his neck.

"What did you do? I was dying... Then you... What did you give me?" he asked, walking over to Bones and standing beside the chair where he was sitting.

The whole story came tumbling out of Bones', no _John's_ mouth, which led to his own spectacular case of foot in mouth. Hurt and a resigned pain had bloomed in John's eyes while he had been spacing. He became aware of himself again as he looked up into that familiar face, felt those strong, familiar hands on his skin, and realized, that no, it really made no difference.

Jim brought his hands up, and John flinched before he realized that all Jim had done was mirror his action, cradling John's face and wiping away a tear he had not consciously let escape. "You're right, John. It doesn't matter. You're still my Bones, but I... We can't just be friends now; it's just not possible, not after what you did," he stated matter-of-factly.

John's eyes shuttered for a moment before he nodded curtly and made to pull back, saying hoarsely, "Right. Got it. I'll—"

Jim caught his hands with a trace of that trademark Kirk-smirk curling his lips, and, lacing their fingers together tightly, continued, "I said we can't _just_ be friends. That doesn't mean we can't be more." Hope blossomed in John's eyes, and Jim leaned in, sealing their lips and his promise.

There would be more details to work out, stories to come up with, but they could face that together. They _would_ face that together, back to back, always protecting the other, and hand to hand, always loving the other.

_**Fin**_


End file.
